I love doing what I’m doing, and I’ve always been afraid not to lose a client because I was too expensive or because I doubted s/he understood the added value I was bringing to their company.
“Hey guys, I’m Dragoș, and I am a strategist!” whenever I introduce myself to a person I’ve just met, it feels like I’m admitting shamefully that I’m someone that needs some kind of intervention. I imagine a lot of people in my life have yelled at me in their minds that “It is not a real job, dude! Grow up!”
I’ve been doing it since 2002, and I’ve evolved after working enormously underpaid in over 45 industries. So I thought it was worth paying my way into getting as much experience and professional wisdom as I could.
So it’s not a phase. There’s no experimenting.
It took years to understand that I was doing strategy.
I started as a graphic designer, and when trying to work for clients, I had a hard time getting briefed. People needed a logo or a print ad but always lacked the simplest brief. What do you want me to “say” with the design work? What story do you want it to tell people? Why do you want it “blue”?
Even if I went to a military high school and following orders was already my second nature, when switching to a creative industry, I understood one thing since day one: my work needs to “tell a compelling, memorable story” without me being present in the room. Graphic design and creative content need to stand alone and tell people what their meaning is.
My clients were primitive entrepreneurs (and I say this with huge love), and if I wanted to get paid, I needed to deliver the work. I could not afford to wait around and debate existential contexts that they should and needed to give me.
Most entrepreneurs expect to be driven to the destination without them knowing where that is. Instead, they want you to read their mind simply because this is “your job.”
I am not even kidding.
So, I started to do the “mind-reading,” and I became pretty darn good at it because of my introvert and observant personality. As a kid, I loved Agatha Christie’s books, so I created a detective narrative in my head to find clues, answers, and facts in all my projects. I did creative, product development, advertising and promotions, marketing, and brand development with an ease that worked against me (it did not hurt a bit, so I let it run free for my clients).
Despite my brilliant work, I always had a hard time getting paid for THINKING.
20 years into being underpaid for thinking through other people’s businesses, I know now that I did not help them or me.
My most recent epiphany
Yesterday I had a free sales coaching session with a person who cannot afford me, and she did some very weird information gating about the context she needed help with. She intentionally hid the lead’s contact details. I take pride in my keen sense of detail. I need all the information there is. Always. I argued and proved her wrong that those details would’ve made the entire session much more productive.
Following up, I discussed with a friend in the same field, and she told me this new perspective: “Did you ever think that you helping her for free makes her doubt your integrity?”
What?
I provide free counseling so that I can help. To plant karmic seeds, so to speak. To help out people who otherwise will struggle, make mistakes, and endure grow-pain could be avoided. WHY WOULD SHE DOUBT MY CLEAN INTENTIONS?
Then it hit me.
Would I openly receive something for free in this case? For example, if a person gave me free advice to build a house, would I trust that person IS NOT TRYING to squeeze his way into my life and size immediately the opportunity to SELL ME something at some point?
No way. I KNOW instinctively that someone in the business space would only give me something free just as a hook type of attitude.
Yes, doing FREE stuff for someone is dubious.
So, why in the hell did I do it so much in the hope it will pay back somehow in the grand scheme. Because I ignored the rules of engagement on giving away free counseling.
- You need to afford it to give away free work— it costs you time and money to do free shit for people. So get rich first, and then pay back your luck.
- Choose carefully who you give free work to — avoid at all cost people that have failed too much. They’re damned. You’re not helping them. On the contrary, a person that is used to failing will understand that this is the norm. Free services are not the norm, but the abnormality.
- Walk them halfway through the destination — never hold their hand till the end. Let them figure it out or work their way into the conclusion.